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December 13, 2024 5 mins
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
He's seven twenty two hour time here on Houston's Morning News.
It is against the law here in the great State
of Texas to perform transit or child surgery, any sort
of child mutilation what we consider to be child mutilation
here in Texas on a child. I think that speaks
for itself. But evidently it is still happening. At least
that's what doctor Ethan Heim says, and he should know.

(00:25):
He has under a gag order. He can't talk to us.
His wife, Andrea Heimken Andrea, thank you for coming on
the show today. We sure do appreciate it. Your husband
is in court right now. Can you tell us a
little bit about how he went purporting this child mutilation,
who he reported it to, and what has happened since.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, absolutely, thanks for having me on. So my husband
is doctor Aton him. He was working at Texas Children's
Hospital in twenty twenty three, and in twenty twenty two,
Texas Children said that they had stopped performing transgender procedures
on my in response to an opinion from Attorney General
Paxton that these procedures were criminal child abuse. That my

(01:07):
husband knew that the program didn't stop, and in fact,
just three days after they said that they stopped the program,
they implanted a puberty blocking device surgically into the arm
of an eleven year old girl and the program only
intensified from there. So my husband knew that this was happening.
He knew that they were lying about it to the public,
They were concealing it from the public, and so he

(01:29):
started reaching out to journalists because he wanted to get
the story out, and he got in touch with investigative
journalist Christopher Ruffo in May of twenty twenty three, and
they published a story in which he revealed that these
procedures were still ongoing at Texas Children's that they had
a very active transgender program. And two days later, after

(01:50):
that story came out that Texas legislature voted on, as
you mentioned, the bill to ban transgender procedures in the
state of Texas and they're no longer legal to do.
Since then, my husband has been facing federal trial in Houston.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
He's under what grounds? Under what grounds is the federal
government suing your husband?

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Well, you know, their case is honest has fallen apart
a couple of times, so it's hard to say exactly
what their theory is. But their basis is hip up.
They're saying not that he revealed patient information, because everything
that my husband provided a journalist was completely redacted to
patient information of identifying patient information. What they're charging him
with is this absolutely novel, never before seen theory of

(02:34):
that he accessed patient information as a doctor at the hospital,
even though he was working at the hospital and had
access to their system. You know, he was a surgeon there,
he was doing procedures. So it's an absolutely ridiculous theory.
Their indictment has fallen apart twice. Now they've recently filed
a third indictment, which is you know, almost unheard of

(02:55):
due to their own errors in facts and errors in
law law. So that's what he's being charged with. He's
facing four felony accounts of hippa, again almost never charged
as a felony, which carries up to ten years in
federal prison.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Let me obviously here this has been as an act
of intimidation, probably as much for any other doctor who
would quote unquote write out the hospital as it is
for anything else. And we'll get into the retaliation thing
here in just a second. But when your husband talked
to the journalist, did he reveal his name, did he
try to do it in an anonymous way? Did they
publish his name?

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Initially he was completely anonymous. We had no intention of
anyone knowing who he was or certainly who I was.
And so when he was anonymous in twenty twenty three.
It was only in early twenty twenty four, during the
federal investigation that he went public, and that was in
response to the corruption that he was seeing at the DOJ,
and we knew that this case was going to be filed.

(03:51):
We saw absolutely severe corruption from the federal prosecutor in
charge of his case, where she was threatening to take
him a trial on a technicality, even if she would lose,
just to punish him. So he wanted people to know
our story, and it was important that we'd be able
to get, you know, to raise funds for our legal defense.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
You have you have you or your husband been in
contact at all with you know, the members of the
Trump administration. Obviously there's gonna be big changes coming to
the Department of Justice. My guess is if they were
aware of your case, they would probably take it and
look into it right away.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, so I can't seek too directly to the conversations
that they've had. I understand they've been had mostly through
my husband's counsel. You know, I certainly hope that the
Trump administration takes a serious look at this case because
you know, as you know, this is complete political retaliation,
and I don't believe this would have ever been brought
under a Trump administration. So my hope is that, you know,
they do take a serious look at this case and

(04:46):
do something about it. But I'm not sure about what
the status of those conversations.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
One last one for you, that is, let's assume everything,
either the case gets dropped or your husband has found innocent,
whatever the case may be. Do you believe that it'll
be more difficult for him to practice medicine going forward?
Do you think that there will be some form of
retaliation as far as his ability to be a physician?

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Well, I certainly hope not, and you know, certainly it's
the case. You know, we if we win at trial,
if the case has dropped, whatever it may be, you know,
there shouldn't be any impact on his medical license. And
I just want to emphasize he's a surgeon. Right now,
we live in a small town outside of Dallas where
he's been practicing and taking care of patients. He's an
absolutely incredible doctor. And I do worry about what the
consequences might be in the future, but I know that,

(05:32):
you know, I just have to have hoped that everything
is going to be all right.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Well, you know, well we will certainly do our part
to keep shining a light on this. Thank you for
joining us this morning. We appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
You've bet Adrea him. It's seven twenty eight
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